The Price of a Career
by Hekate1308
Summary: She'd only asked for one big story. She hadn't wanted it to end like this. Kitty Riley, Post-Reichenbach.


**Author's note: This is part of my self-imposed challenge to give characters some... character. I know we'll all hate Kitty Riley forever, but I figured that she deserved a oneshot too. **

**I don't own anything, please review.**

All she'd wanted was one big story. Had that been too much to ask?

She couldn't have known that Sherlock Holmes would commit suicide. She couldn't have known that he would be absolutely destroyed as soon as his career –

No. She shouldn't think about that.

She'd always wanted to be a journalist, even in primary school, when all the girls had wanted to become princesses, and most of the boys had decided to be pirates one day.

She'd wanted to become a journalist even then. To uncover hidden truths, to bring news to the public. To do something meaningful.

So she'd studied everything she needed to get a job at a newspaper, and waited, waited rather patiently, in fact. Because big stories didn't just present themselves on a silver tablet. You had to work for them. You had to spend nights searching for one clue that would bring you the story you longed for; you had to always keep on your toes, so no one would steal it from you.

And then Sherlock Holmes happened.

At first, she hadn't really paid attention to the self-proclaimed "consulting detective"; hundreds of journalists were writing down his story, he was an internet phenomenon, after all. But when Jim Moriarty broke into the Tower of London, the Bank of England and the Pentonville prison at the same time and Sherlock Holmes was the star witness at his trial – she knew that it was her chance. Every celebrity needed someone in the press, someone they could trust. And she could be that person for Sherlock Holmes; his spokeswoman, the one who stood behind him when everyone else turned against him – and they would, she knew enough about the press to feel sure of that.

She hadn't thought he'd be so rude, or tell her plainly that she repelled him. Nobody had ever told her that, though, working for the press, she should probably have expected it. But she couldn't forget it. She'd worked hard for what she'd achieved; she was still working hard, keeping her deadlines, writing as much as she could as well as she could – and someone, who'd, as she soon found out, dropped out of university, who'd only become famous because of a blog of his (if you asked her, obviously infatuated) flatmate dared to tell her –

And at this very moment, she decided that she wouldn't be Sherlock Holmes' spokeswoman in the press, but his worst critic.

Richard Brook's appearance had been a miracle.

He'd told her everything he knew about Sherlock – more than enough to convince her he told the truth. Nothing but the truth. Sherlock Holmes had put people's lives at risk, and for that, he had to pay.

Though she hadn't wanted him to pay for it with his life. Public disgrace, yes; a prison sentence, yes; but –

She'd let Richard live with her, because not even Sherlock Holmes would dare to break into her apartment after the story had gone to the printers.

Or so she'd thought. But he and John Watson (she was sorry for the doctor, in a way; being betrayed like that couldn't be easy) had actually broken into her flat, in handcuffs after being arrested and escaping. It would make for a good story, at least, but she wished Richard wouldn't have decided to run away. She'd grown quite fond of him over the last few days.

She remembered the moment she'd got the news. A police reporter she'd become friends with had called her. At first, she didn't believe it. Sherlock Holmes seemed to arrogant, too self-centred, to kill himself. And she'd been sure that he'd cared about John Watson, in a way. Certainly too much to commit suicide in front of him.

She'd been wrong on both accounts.

Richard had disappeared. She didn't know what had become of him. She was worried, especially since for the first two hours after Sherlock Holmes' suicide, some government officials had occupied the roof he'd jumped off, and an annoying young woman with a blackberry had sent away anyone who dared to get too close.

And, despite trying not to, she was sorry for Sherlock Holmes.

She hadn't wanted it to end like this. She never wanted stories to end with a death; it was too depressing. Sherlock Holmes might have invented the crimes he had claimed to have solved –

That's when she realized.

She may have caused him to commit suicide. It might be her fault that he was dead. It wasn't a pleasant thought. She tried to tell herself that it would have come out, eventually, that he'd have been arrested, and –

But maybe, just maybe –

Without her article, there wouldn't have been so much news coverage of it. He wouldn't have been declared a fraud in every newspaper of the county.

He would have been arrested, he would have been sent to jail, but he wouldn't –

He wouldn't be dead right now, if it wasn't for her.

She couldn't fight the thought, no matter how much she tried.

Her colleagues were looking at her differently, she could tell, and not in the way she'd always wished they would. When she'd written her first story about the consulting detective who turned out to be a fraud, she had imagined them looking up to her. She hadn't imagined them looking at her with blame in their eyes.

She hadn't imagined her editor questioning her about her motives for publishing the story and warning her that "there might be consequences". There weren't any because she hadn't done anything wrong, but still – she'd rather been looking forward to the praise that was her due.

She hadn't imagined herself to be guilty of the death of another person.

She didn't cover the funeral. One of her colleagues was given the task of writing an article about that, and she would have been angry, if she hadn't felt slightly relieved not to have to watch Sherlock Holmes' friends and family saying goodbye. She had the feeling that John Watson, at least, wouldn't be happy to see her. She read the article, though, and she watched the news coverage – though, somehow, news crews weren't allowed within three hundred feet of the cemetery. And in England – did Sherlock Holmes help the queen once? There was simply no other explanation.

And she certainly hadn't imagined being picked up by a black limousine when she left work and being brought to an abandoned warehouse.

A man in an impeccable suit and carrying an umbrella, though there was no sign of rain, was already waiting for her. She would have protested that this was kidnapping, but something in his gaze stopped her. He looked threatening. And far from happy.

"Miss Riley" he said, very politely, but his voice still sent a shiver down her spine. "I wanted to talk to you about the story you published about Sherlock Holmes on the – "

And for two hours, she had to answer his questions. She had to tell him all about Richard, and how he'd turned up, and when, and when he'd disappeared, all while feeling that if she shouldn't, he'd make sure they'd never find her body.

In the end, he let her go, without telling her who he was. Apparently she had been somehow exonerated, or something like that, because "the act had been convincing". She wasn't sure what he meant.

No, she was very sure what he meant, but the thought was absurd.

Sherlock Holmes was a fraud. Richard had proven it.

The first doubts came when Henry Knight appeared.

He stood in front of her flat, one evening when she returned home, and she wondered – maybe not as panicked as she should have been, but you can get sued to everything – when it had become an acceptable pastime to wait in or outside her flat.

When he introduced himself, she didn't know what to think. Maybe he wanted to talk to her about how he'd been duped by Sherlock Holmes, how he was a victim, and it would make her feel a little better about his suicide –

No such luck.

Henry Knight was furious, but not at Sherlock Holmes.

"He solved my father's murder! We weren't alone, John and DI Lestrade heart Bob Franklin confess too! He knew everything because he'd deduced it!"

"Mr Knight" she tried, patiently, to calm him down, "I realize that – "

"No! You realized nothing! How could he possibly have invented my father's murder? Or do you suppose he started "making up crimes" at fifteen so he could make a career out of it twenty years later? Do you think I'm an actor too? Should I show you my therapy bills? I'm sure Louise is keeping them somewhere..."

He was running his hands through his short hair as she spoke, and seemed to feel the rather new-looking wedding ring on his left hand, because he held it up and showed it to her. "By the way, it's mostly your fault John was my best man at our wedding. It would have been Sherlock if he – " He swallowed.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know if there was anything she could say.

Up to this point, she had been convinced that Sherlock had been a fraud. Meaning he invented all his cases. Each and every one of them. But, it was true – Henry's father had died when Henry had been nine years old. And the thought that Sherlock had killed –

It was impossible. Sherlock couldn't have been much older than fifteen, and he couldn't have foreseen that Henry would come to –

It hit her then. Sherlock couldn't have foreseen that any of his clients would come to him. So how had he solved the cases that were brought to him?

Henry left soon after, apparently having had his say, leaving her trying to wrap her head around the fact that Sherlock Holmes might have invented Moriarty –

But solved several cases and helped several people over the course of the years.

And she had been the first to doubt him, the first of many. Within a few short days, it had pushed him to commit suicide.

She resigned her job the week after. There wasn't anything else to do, simply because she couldn't imagine ever publishing another article again.

She didn't know what she would do; but, whatever it was, it wouldn't be writing for a newspaper.

But anything was better than the knowledge that she must just be responsible for a man's death. She would carry that knowledge with her for the rest of her life anyway.

She only hoped that she would never have to remember another man they she remembered Sherlock Holmes.

No career was worth a life, after all.

**Author's note: A bit shorter, but there isn't much you can do with Kitty. I tried to show that she was so excited about Rich Brook's story that she didn't think about it for too long – and didn't realize that there were many, many cases Sherlock had solved he couldn't have invented or arranged himself. And I rather like Henry.**

**Oh, and I have a seminar over the next few days – so I won't be around, I fear. But you'll definitely have the last chapter of my Christmas story on Monday.**

**Tell me, please, if this is any good. It wasn't easy to write, and I'm really not sure. Since I'd written it, though, I decided to publish it. Because my dear readers deserve as many stories as I can give them.**

**Hope you liked it, though.**


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